The invention relates to an apparatus for separating adjacent material formats, having two arched rolls which are arranged one above the other as a pair of squeeze rolls, through the feed nip of which the material formats run.
Such an apparatus may, for example, be part of a stacking system for boards, in particular printing plates, printed circuit boards and similar material formats, in which the boards, which are directly adjacent for processing reasons, are guided for example in four lines.
For stacking of the four adjacent boards, it is necessary to separate them and deposit them between separating plates in order to prevent them from hooking on to one another during the depositing operation.
German Patent Specification No. 2,007,569 discloses a roll frame for the separating of webs running parallel and next to one another, having a feed deflection roll, a delivery deflection roll and two arched rolls in between, the planes of curvature of which are aligned parallel to each other and to the deflection rolls and around which the webs are guided with an S-shaped wrapround. The webs run onto the arched roll which is positioned first in the direction of running in the region of the generating line of greatest concavity and leaving the second arched roll in the region of the generating line of greatest convexity. To alter the angle of wrapround, and thus to separate the webs, the two arched rolls can be pivoted in the same direction about the center parallel of the deflection roll axes on swivel arms lying symmetrical to the center parallel. For this purpose, alignment arms, interacting with the pivoting of the swivel arms, are available as coupling elements for adjustment of the rotatable arched roll shaft such that the plane of curvature of the respective arched roll shaft is constantly aligned perpendicular to the plane which is determined by the arched roll shaft and the assigned deflection roll shaft. The webs, such as plastic webs, aluminum webs, adhesive tapes or the like, are produced from a wide web by longitudinal cutting to the necessary width. Before the winding-up of the individual webs, they must be separated in order to obtain a distance between neighboring webs so that neighboring individual windings on the winding shaft do not have contact with one another.
German Patent Specification No. 2,922,362 describes an apparatus for the spreading and guiding of a web running through, such as a web of film, woven fabric, non-woven fabric or of another fibrous material, having individual bearing elements for the web which can be drawn apart in the longitudinal direction of the roll, which elements are anchored at both ends on the circumference of control rings which are rotatable coaxially with the shaft and which are connected to a guide rod each and, in between, to a tie rod-like coupling element, for inclining with respect to the shaft. In this apparatus, a control and/or stabilization roll is assigned to the roll surface in the web running direction and is mounted rotatably on the coupling element of the guide rods. The stabilization roll has a roughened surface layer. This apparatus is not intended for the separation of a plurality of material webs.
The foregoing illustrates limitations known to exist in present devices. Thus, it is apparent that it would be advantageous to provide an alternative directed to overcoming one or more of the limitations set forth above. Accordingly, a suitable alternative is provided including features more fully disclosed hereinafter.